Former Arsenal winger Nicolas Pepe has revealed he considered quitting football amid a wave of criticism after he struggled to justify his £72million move to the club.
Pepe joined the Gunners in a then club record transfer in 2019 from Lille, with the Premier League club paying an initial £20m with the remaining £52m spread over five years.
Arsenal had been convinced to make the big-money move after Pepe scored 23 goals in 41 games the previous season, a tally only bettered by Kylian Mbappe in Ligue 1.
Pepe, now 29, made 112 appearances in all competitions for Arsenal and scored 27 times.
The winger’s contract was terminated last summer with the Gunners keen to remove him from the wage bill.
Former Arsenal winger Nicolas Pepe admitted he nearly quit football after a wave of criticism
Pepe claimed the criticism was ‘almost harassment’ as he struggled to justify his £72m transfer
Reports even emerged in 2020 that the club had scrutinsed the decision to pay £72m for Pepe as part of an internal review.
Pepe admitted in an interview with French newspaper L’Equipe that he had considered quitting the game due to the weight of criticism he received.
The winger said he ‘didn’t ask for the £72m fee to be put on him’, suggesting the price tag led to him receiving a ‘wave of criticism’.
‘It was almost harassment. I don’t look at social media much, but if my brother told me “this is what they said about you”, it would affect me unconsciously,’ Pepe said.
‘It also came from the media or from certain members of the club. They don’t realise that it can affect the mental state, the family and it affects performance.
‘The only people who have always supported me are the Arsenal fans.
‘At Arsenal, I suffered a kind of trauma, as if my passion had been ripped away from me, I had a disgust for football. I doubted myself to the point that I thought about quitting everything.
Pepe claimed he had his passion ‘ripped away’ as his performances faced heavy criticism
Pepe is a free agent again this summer after a one-year spell at Trabzonspor came to an end
‘I wondered how they could have been so relentless in their attacks on me. They even called me the biggest flop in the history of the Premier League. But I refused to mope.’
Pepe had scored eight goals and provided 10 assists in 41 matches during his first season at Arsenal under boss Unai Emery in 2019-20.
The Ivorian winger enjoyed his best campaign at the Emirates the following season by netting 16 goals and chipping in with five assists in 47 games.
He gradually slipped down the pecking order at Arsenal the following year, featuring 23 times but making only five starts
Pepe moved on loan to Nice for the 2022-23 season, before joining Turkish side Trabzonspor last year after his Gunners deal was terminated.
The winger is now a free agent after opting against renewing his one-year deal at Trabzonspor, with the 29-year-old reportedly still keen to make an impact in Europe despite interest from Saudi Arabia.
